Down With Pants

My brother and I see eye-to-eye on the topic of pants and working from home.

Also, despite my brother’s lack of pants, he’s a great animator and creator of digital graphics. Check out his reason for working for himself here.

2011: A Year In Review

Happy New Year’s Eve! As Nick and I prepare to do our traditional New Year’s watching of “When Harry Met Sally” and make/share our lists of goals for 2012, it seems like a perfect time to look back on 2011. Even though this year seemed to fly by, so much happened!

JANUARY

– After the holidays, returned to work at Insound to find approximately a trillion online orders for the new CAKE album that had to be processed and sent out

– Met Ezra who was hired temporarily to help get the records sent out quickly. We realized we had a lot of the same musical taste and I declared him my New York Eli.

– It snowed and snowed and snowed

– I spent most of my mornings holding on to the iron gate below so I wouldn’t slip and fall on my way to work

FEBRUARY

– Nick and I attended our first New York Knicks basketball game, which was a ton of fun.

– We celebrated our first Valentine’s Day as a married couple at – where else? – Peter Luger!

– I changed positions at Insound from White Label to Fulfillment.

MARCH

– The Japan earthquake and tsunami bummed me out

– After a few weeks at my new job, I started to experience serious leg pain. Turns out, my hips and knee joints were inflamed from over use. My body was very unhappy with my new job, working in a warehouse and running around all day. I started to get hives and thought I had shingles!

– Needless to say, I gave my resignation. I need legs more than I need discounted records.

– I planned a trip home to Canada the weekend after my last day at Insound. I needed some family, friend, and Canada time, big time!

– Coincidentally while in Toronto, my old employer of 6+ years, The Agency Group, was throwing themselves a 15th anniversary party! I was invited and of course I went.

– An old coworker from The Agency Group who now manages bands got a hold of me and hired me to do design, web, and social media for one of her clients, USS!

– I also started doing a freelance wedding planning assistant job for an older couple from New York

APRIL

– By April, my freelance work was really coming along and keeping me busy. I stopped applying for other jobs.

– Experienced the best “April Fool’s Joke” ever – Elvis Costello playing three of his best songs before The Strokes hit the stage at Madison Square Garden!

– Nick and I moved into a fantastic new apartment, just one block away from our old one. Check out our sweet “box blinds” above!

– I attended my first of many Creative Mornings  in DUMBO

– Started doing Ashtanga yoga, instead of the usual Vinyasa, and fell in love with it. Have been practicing 2-4 times a week ever since.

MAY

– Celebrated Cinco De Mayo with Kate and some Mexican wrestlers

– Nick and I discovered comedy shows at Caroline’s in Times Square. We saw Jim Jeffries, Bill Burr, and Whitney Cummings while eating dinner, sipping beers, and laughing. What a perfect night out!

– Kate & I continue our fun by attending a Seychelle’s party. We drink free vodka, eat a free dinner, then later pay $25 for a glass of champagne, justifying we would have normally spent more than that anyway!

– My sister, Jenn, comes to visit for a weekend. I take her to Babycakes for gluten-free treats, Risotteria for gluten-free dinner, then help this hard-working mom get drunk for the first time in 7 years on red wine!

JUNE

– My old roomie, Angela, comes to visit from San Francisco. We attend the opening of Jeremy Fish‘s art show, then a rooftop party in Chelsea.

– I attend Smorgasburg in Williamsburg and fall in love with all the food stands

– June’s Creative Mornings helps get me a few other jobs when I meet Mark from BCS Interactive while waiting for the lecture to start. We nerd out on fonts, design, and then he and his partner Lou hire me to do Social Media for some of their accounts.

JULY

– Julia and Jay visit, Nick and I get to feed them all our favourite things. Of course, this includes another trip to Smorgasburg.

– Nick and I spend the 4th of July weekend in Lancaster, PA with Nick’s Dad

– Went to the beach in Long Island a few times and actually got a tan

– Nick and I fly up to Toronto, just in time to experience the hottest day ever! Luckily, we later go up to my parents’ cottage and swim in the river under the shady trees for relief.

– While in Toronto, we celebrate our first wedding anniversary

AUGUST

– Canada’s NDP Leader Jack Layton passes away

– Courtney and Jesse move away to Atlanta

– In preparation for mine & Nick’s trip to Europe at the end of August, I read an entire guide book on Paris and create the most-organized and complete trip itinerary of my life.

– Attend limited-time dumpster pool party “The Palms” in Long Island City with Olivia.

– Nick and I travel to London, attend the Reading Festival, take the train to Paris, then back to London to fly home

– I read most of The Girl Who Played With Fire on the plane, train, and our Parisian balcony and decide there’s something to this novel series.

SEPTEMBER

– Nick goes on his yearly “man beach trip” with his best friends so I decide to treat myself to a bonus Canada visit

– Get to attend Julia and Jay’s engagement party while in Toronto

– I manage to get a ticket to one of the unattainable, sold out in 31 seconds Radiohead shows in New York. Go to the show solo, but end up chatting with Rolling Stone’s David Fricke.

OCTOBER

– We mourn the death of Steve Jobs

– I turn 30, promptly get called a cougar

– Julia and her two other bridesmaids visit, I finally have an excuse to go to Lovely Bridal shop and watch her try on dresses

– I luck out and get another trip to Toronto! My fourth of 2011. It’s a quick one though, just two days, but still enough time to see two shows, friends, and a family dinner at a steakhouse.

– While we’re in Toronto, New York gets a freak snowstorm! The snow melts in approximately one day.

NOVEMBER

– Nick and I finally try out the Grand Central Oyster Bar

– I take part in a Rainbow Parade

– We finally get to see Louis CK do standup live during the New York Comedy Festival

– We spend Thanksgiving at home, celebrating with a trip to Central Park, another Jim Jeffries comedy show, and turkey tacos for dinner

DECEMBER

– I realize now that I work freelance from home, I have no Christmas parties to go to! Then I get invited to The Agency Group NY’s party. Phew!

– Nick and I go to Lancaster for an early Christmas to visit his Dad. We scope out the mall, find Simpsons DVDs on sale at a music store, and the biggest assortment of gummi candy ever!

– We go see the Rockefeller Center tree a mere 3 days before Christmas and it’s a mob scene!

– Fly up to Canada for Christmas with the family. Spend 4 out of 5 days living in a cabin in the woods and have 5 moose keep us from being able to get to the grocery store.

How was your 2011? What was the best part?

Feeling nostalgic? Check out:

2010 + 2009

Shit Girls Say

Toronto’s talented couple Graydon Sheppard and Kyle Humphrey posted their first video in their new series “Shit Girls Say”.

Originally a Twitter feed, the first video features Juliette Lewis, who was one of their more enthusiastic Twitter followers.

Do you find yourself saying one or more of these stereotypical girly phrases?

Thank(sgiving) You Notes

…Aren’t they polite?

Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! (And Happy belated Thanksgiving, Canada!)

[From Thx Thx Thx &  Jimmy Fallon’s Thank You Notes]

A Rainbow Parade!

On Friday morning, I took part in a rainbow parade!

No, it had nothing to do with gay pride, it was simply about colour. How did this happen? Well each month, I attend a breakfast lecture series called Creative Mornings. It’s my favourite Friday morning of the month because I wake up early and take the East River ferry down to DUMBO, sit in the gorgeous Galapagos Art Space, eat croissants, and meet new creative types. It’s the ultimate blah-buster.

Friday’s guest speaker was Jessi Arrington, artist and colour-lover. Everyone was instructed to dress in one colour (I was yellow) and we sat in groups with our fellow colour-wearers. At the end of her very cute and upbeat lecture, she informed us we were going to have a little parade around the neighbourhood, led by a marching band!

I had so much fun! The whole thing was so absurd, but well-organized and everyone really committed. On-lookers stopped in the street to take photos of the parade on their phones, cars honked at us, and office workers were pressed up against their windows to look down and watch our impromptu march.

I’m the “yellow” with the black hat. My new friend Emily is beside me in the big yellow wig!

We marched to the “hole” under the bridge and lit sparklers. Then we turned around to have a reverse-rainbow parade back to the venue. So many smiles for 9:30 am! But really, how could you not?

It had been way too long since I partook in something so silly. This needs to happen more often!

[Photos by Creative Mornings and Place Name Here]

Halloweenies

Happy Halloween! Nick and I spent our pre-Halloween weekend in Toronto, visiting family and friends and seeing a few of his bands play for an incredibly enthusiastic crowd. Unfortunately, this means we missed out on any Halloween parties, but we’ve vowed to find a good party (or throw one) and dress up next year.

Until then, here are some weird and hilarious costumes from the past few years.

Me as a zombie, Sarah as a mermaid, Nathan as “Bad Brains” (?), and Karen slips into a children’s pumpkin costume

Perhaps my strangest role ever – Cheech Marin with Jayme as Tommy Chong

The year Angela and I just dug a bunch of weird clothes, wigs, and bronzer out of her costume trunk at the last minute.

Two of my favourite Halloween costumes ever: Chad cross-dressing figure skater and Julia’s worm!

I’ve seen so many good costume ideas this year including The Fantastic Mr. & Mrs. Fox, Toddlers in Tiaras, and more. What did you dress up as?

Also: Halloween or Williamsburg?

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?

After reading her funny quips on Twitter and her hilarious recent New Yorker article, I have a feeling that Mindy Kaling’s new book will be the solution to “Bossypants” being too short.

Here’s the description:

Mindy Kaling has lived many lives: the obedient child of immigrant professionals, a timid chubster afraid of her own bike, a Ben Affleck–impersonating Off-Broadway performer and playwright, and, finally, a comedy writer and actress prone to starting fights with her friends and coworkers with the sentence “Can I just say one last thing about this, and then I swear I’ll shut up about it?”

Perhaps you want to know what Mindy thinks makes a great best friend (someone who will fill your prescription in the middle of the night), or what makes a great guy (one who is aware of all elderly people in any room at any time and acts accordingly), or what is the perfect amount of fame (so famous you can never get convicted of murder in a court of law), or how to maintain a trim figure (you will not find that information in these pages). If so, you’ve come to the right book, mostly!

In Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, Mindy invites readers on a tour of her life and her unscientific observations on romance, friendship, and Hollywood, with several conveniently placed stopping points for you to run errands and make phone calls. Mindy Kaling really is just a Girl Next Door—not so much literally anywhere in the continental United States, but definitely if you live in India or Sri Lanka.

What do you guys think? I love me a good slightly-neurotic, sarcastic, and funny read, especially when it’s by a lady! Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) will be released November 1.

Quitting your day job

Who hasn’t had a terrible job? If you’re not in one now, think back to that job you were forced to keep so you could pay your rent or advance your career. Remember how good it felt when you were finally able to quit? If you were like me, you politely handed in a letter of resignation and patiently waited out your last two weeks, knowing there was an end in sight. Well, this guy did things a little differently:

I don’t know this guy, but I love how excited you feel for him in the video. Also, this marching band should really go into the “helping you quit your shitty job” business!

Have you ever quit a job in a legendary way?

Goodnight Keith Moon

Who doesn’t remember the sweet, simple children’s book Goodnight Moon? Well, apparently we’re all grown up and ready for the creepier, rock & roll version of the classic – Goodnight Keith Moon.

The parody hits the nail right on the head with the illustrations and prose, but with a few major differences. Mainly, that the story is centered around the deceased former drummer of The Who.

What do you think? Would you read it to your kids to teach them about classic rock while at the same time, warning against the hazards of drugs & alcohol? It could end up being more educational than the original book.

Read the entire book here and if you like it, it’s in stores now!

Rockstars who look like Wizards

Rolling Stone Magazine has a hilarious piece on their website right now entitled “Rockstars who look like Wizards” in which a variety of famous musicians are photoshopped into Harry Potter characters. The similarities are amazing, minus a few who may have just been included to stay relevant *cough* Gaga, Bieber *cough*.

See the rest here.